Driver statements for mission and for meetings

In our last meeting, we realized that reminders of best-practices (for our work overall and for the meeting itself) would be better framed as meaningful drivers themselves. We decided to try starting meetings with a driver/affirmation to focus on why we are meeting and what we hope to accomplish. To that end, I’ve drafted two driver statements. They are a starting point, and I welcome suggestions and feedback.

Overall mission level driver:

Most FLO projects remain underfunded; and paywalls and embedded ads remain predominant. We see crowdfunding as a solution but it’s not yet ready to fully use. We need to finish the minimum-viable foundations of the Snowdrift.coop platform. With those basics in place, we could bring in our own funding, begin support of outside projects, and then have a clearer path forward to a better world built on cooperation and FLO values.

Meeting driver:

We have a small team of volunteers committed to the mission but with limited time and energy. Momentum in the right directions motivates us and outside contributors. Stagnation or getting sidetracked can halt that positive feedback loop. We need to stay connected as a team and keep our eyes on the prize, supporting one another on a human level while continually refining and updating our work. With cooperative teamwork and continual refinement, we can figure out the most effective path forward to achieving our mission to help fund public goods and a free society.

3 Appreciations

I may have gone a little too broad, and I still need practice making really pithy driver statements.

1 Appreciation

Trying for more pithiness on related other drivers (around the stuff we had decided to mention as reminders in the beginnings of meetings):

Driver statement on Sociocracy patterns

We sometimes make decisions and choose tools without using best-practices (such as Sociocracy driver statements, proposal process, or similar). Sometimes people feel confused or uninspired, and we don’t have clear agreements. We should try these ideas and see where they help (versus where they introduce just costly overhead). With consensus on refined process and communication, we can act with better coordination, efficiency, and motivation.

Driver statement on using GitLab Boards to track work

We do not all feel fully comfortable with tracking our Snowdrift work. It can be hard to know who is actively working on what and how others might help (even by just checking in). We don’t need to all work the same way, but we need everyone to feel good about their process and able to describe it easily. Then we can all coordinate better and keep accountability.

(not a driver statement) Drivers ≠ proposals

I noticed some trouble in writing these. I was starting with the proposal already (e.g. using GitLab Boards) and trying to write a driver statement to justify going with the proposal. That’s all backwards.

We should just have cleaner, simpler driver statements. Only with consensus on those should we then agree on proposals. Maybe we shouldn’t use the Boards a particular way. Or maybe we should. If we all get on the same page about the driver, then we can figure out the proposals afterwards.

Driver about dropping current proposals from meeting reminders

Some reminders (like using Boards) did not have a good consensus, driver-proposal process but were just suggestions from me. We don’t all have buy-in, so we aren’t implementing the suggestions. We need to have clearer agreements first before we go into making something a “reminder”. We may not even need reminders as much when we’re all on board with a proposal from the beginning.

Now, that feels like a better driver statement to me!